is lit;
When the chestnuts glow in the embers, and the kid turns on the
spit;
When young and old in circle around the firebrands close;
When the girls are weaving baskets, and the lads are shaping bows;
When the goodman mends his armor, and trims his helmet's plume;
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily goes flashing through the loom;
With weeping and with laughter still is the story told,
How well Horatius kept the bridge in the brave days of old.

FOOTNOTES:

[L] For the sake of space a change has been made from the usual form
of the poem.

LII. THE RAVEN.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.--1809-1849.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I ponder'd, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door.
"'Tis some visitor," I mutter'd, "tapping at my chamber-door,--
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wish'd the morrow: vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow,--sorrow for the lost Lenore;
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrill'd me--fill'd me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door,--
Some late visitor, entreating entrance at my chamber-door;
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger: hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber-door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you";--here I open'd wide the door;--
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering,
fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whisper'd word "Lenore?"
This I whi